Despite strong opposition from area residents, Calgary City Council has voted to approve in principle a Habitat for Humanity project in the northwest community of Silver Springs.
The proposed multi-unit development would contain 32 townhouse-style units in four buildings on just under one acre (0.38 hectares) of land on Silver Creek Crescent.
The city received 83 letters from nearby residents objecting to the development. The concerns included increased traffic, parking congestion, an increase in density, the height of the buildings, noise and frustration with the engagement process the city and Habitat for Humanity undertook for the project.
“I want to stress we are not anti-development, we’re not NIMBY,” said Dave Rossiter, an area resident who made a presentation to city council on behalf of his neighbours. “We love the work Habitat for Humanity does and applaud the work they do around the community.”
“In general, our input has been ignored. Six months later, our concerns are basically the same.”
Gerrad Oishi, president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity, says changes were made to try to address residents’ concerns but were not communicated very well.
“We did an enormous amount of work to truly listen to the community but I think where we will do better next time is that, we didn’t necessarily do as good a job as we could have of looping back and saying, ‘We heard you. This is what we’ve done.'”
City council gave the proposal approval in principle, asking for both sides to work with city administration and the area councillor to look for areas of compromise.
Rossiter said the community had made a number of suggestions for ways it felt the development could better fit in the area. Suggestions included locating access to the property off Nose Hill Drive rather than from inside the community or lowering the density of the project.
“We would like a compromise,” Rossiter said. “I don’t think that’s unreasonable,” saying the density is too much for the area to handle. “It’s a little bit like a Cinderella thing… Where the ugly step sister is trying to fit that shoe on and no matter how hard you try, you can’t fit that in.”
Oishi said he’s willing to look for a solution.
“It’s something we’re going to have to explore. We want these developments we build to be an asset for the community.”
He said Habitat for Humanity has tried to deal with residents’ concerns by doing a traffic study in the area and buying an adjacent piece of land that will be part of the development to ease the concerns with parking.
There is no timetable as to when the proposal will come back to city council.
— with files from John Himpe
Comments